Premanufactured steel trusses greatly facilitate the construction of buildings and other structures. Known trusses are essentially planar structures with spans and heights far exceeding their thickness. Trusses generally include a bottom chord, top chords extending angularly from the bottom chord, and webs between the top and bottom chords. Premanufactured steel trusses are very strong and reliable in service and are typically used to meet fire codes, long clear span requirements, or to protect against insect infestation.
Web members provide strength and stability to the steel truss structure. It is often desirable to limit the width of the truss members, generally for economic reasons, but also to keep the weight of the steel truss low. At narrower widths, web members may buckle under compression loads. To prevent such buckling, web members may be re-enforced.
Web members typically have a "W" cross sectional shape with a central channel portion. A standard re-enforcing practice is to secure a second web member to the first web member. The side of the second web member is secured to the first web member inside the central channel portion of the first web member. The second web member adds stiffness to the first web member. The problem with this re-enforcing practice is that the re-enforced web member is thicker than the truss, i.e., it extends outside the plane of the truss. This configuration also prevents easy stacking of premanufactured trusses for storage and shipment.
It would be desirable to provide a web member re-enforcement that attaches easily to the web and provides added strength to prevent buckling under compression loads. It would also be desirable to provide a web member re-enforcement that when attached to the web member does not extend outside the plane of the steel truss.